LeyLines
by MizDazey
Summary: Scars tell stories. Sometimes they are the result of a story; sometimes they are the story itself.
1. Chapter 1

_The Blacker Side of Light_

In 3rd Year, when Marlene McKinnon grabbed Sirius' hand as they watched James careen wildly around the Quidditch Pitch during the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw match, she felt the thick scar that crawled from the inside of his palm up to just below the thin skin of his elbow.

Brushing her fingers along his arm, she leaned close, and whispered under the roar of the crowd, "Sirius? What happened?"

Sirius didn't take his eyes off James' tiny form as it darted across his vision, pretending with all his 13-year-old might to focus on his best friend, and not the question the prettiest girl in the year had just asked him.

"Well, McKinnon," he said, grinning, as Sirius knew he would, if what he was going to say wasn't actually a great flaming lie. "It's Black family tradition. Before you go to Hogwarts, you've got to fight off a manticore." He lifted the arm she still grasped. "That's the result of the fight."

She had believed him, at least a little bit, because who knew, exactly, what the Black family might do to its scion and heir, and anyway, Sirius Black himself was impossible and absurd, so it did not tax the imagination to picture him doing something as impossible and absurd as fighting a manticore.

Sirius, desperate to get himself away from Marlene's question and the memories it prodded at, wrapped his fingers around her arm and dragged her out of the stands. They tripped over their classmates and Sirius leered outgrageously as they stumbled down the steps, letting everyone know that he was bored with Quidditch and had better, more grown-up things to attend to.

Because talking about his scars made him feel the way he had when he got them; powerless, and helpless, and always afraid that more would be coming for him, ready to leap out at him when he least expected it. He wanted to feel like the opposite of that. So, he pulled Marlene deep under the stands, into the darkest corner, and pressed her up against the splintery wood, feeling her body curve into his, as he forced her against the wall.

"Sirius..." she gasped, and then his lips were on her neck and his hand was pushing her hands above her head and holding them there and his other hand was unbuttoning her robes and he was licking his way down the slope of her breast and she was panting with pleasure. She could feel Sirius grinning against her skin and whispering her name as he moved his mouth, and she shuddered, forgetting everything but the deliciousness of the moment. Which was exactly Sirius' goal.

Just before the end of 4th Year, when Eleanor Bones unbuttoned the last button of his wrinkled white shirt, which always hung so carelessly from his frame, she found the scar that looped around his bellybutton and disappeared into the trousers that rested on his hips. She traced her fingers down the line of the scar, and looked at him, a question forming on her lips.

"Slytherin duel," he told her, hoping that would be enough, wondering why girls always wanted to _know_, why they had this insatiable desire to understand the things that happened around them, instead of simply living them and not really ever doing any sort of thinking about them.

"Ohh, from earlier this year?" she asked, and Sirius shivered as she lowered her head to rest it on his hip, her lips and tongue only inches away from his scar.

" Course, Ellie. From when the Marauders took on the pathetic Slytherin Quidditch team who wanted to put James out of commission for the match."

"Why didn't Madam Pomfrey heal it?" Her eyes widened. "Were their curses that Dark, that she couldn't fix it?"

Sirius laughed. It wouldn't do to give the Slytherins too much credit. "Not even a little bit. I wanted to keep it. A battle-scar, you know."

"Right, Sirius. But wha-"

Sirius groaned softly. "I'm bored of talking about this," he announced, and suddenly flipped Eleanor off his body and on to her back. She was still wearing her white shirt and wool skirt and nylons, and Sirius was suddenly frantic to have her just as exposed as he was, which would, he felt, require a lot more nakedness on her part than on his.

With a flick of his wrist he ripped open her shirt, smirking as the buttons pinged and clattered across the 4th-year Gryffindor Boys' room. He kissed away her protest, and ran his hands up her thighs, stroking and rubbing the smooth curve of her legs. Deftly, he pulled her nylons down her legs in one swift motion, and trailed his fingers back up her thighs, pausing just at the edge of her bunched up skirt, giving her the semblance of a choice.

"You want me stop, Ellie?" he murmured, taking the edge of her skirt in his teeth, letting her feel his breath as he inched it up her body. He could see the thin skin of her thighs trembling, and he chuckled, deep in his throat. She had completely forgotten about his scar.

After the Welcome Feast, at the beginning of 5th Year, after Amelia Marchbanks yanked him into the perpetually out of order girl's toilet on the 2nd floor and nearly ripped his trousers down his legs, she, as she dropped to her knees in front of him, found the ridged scar that traveled from the edge of his knee up his thigh to his hipbone.

She gasped, and pulled back, clearly startled by the angry cavern that raced its way up Sirius' leg.

Tentatively, she brushed her lips against it, steadying herself with her hands on his hips, and murmured, "what happened here, Sirius, love?"

Sirius scrubbed his hands against his eyes, and exhaled. The topic wasn't open for discussion, and he knew Amelia Marchbanks only well enough to cheat off of her in Herbology. Even James, who Sirius knew like he knew his own skin, had never gotten a straight answer off Sirius. Maybe James deserved one, but this girl staring hungrily up at him deserved nothing, and anyway Sirius wanted to never talk about this again, so he muttered, "an accident, Vivian," and put his hands behind her head and gently pulled her forward.

He winced when her nails dug into the tender skin of his hips and she jerked her head back.

"My name is Amelia, you twat," she informed him, obviously furious he'd forgotten.

"Whatever," Sirius said. "Can you just suck me off already?"

Her mouth dropped open and she leapt to her feet, stumbling in her desire to get away from him.

"Fuck you, Sirius Black," she nearly shrieked, and fled from the bathroom, already in tears.

"Sorry, Amelia," Sirius whispered to the empty bathroom, dropping his head to avoid the sad grey eyes of the boy in the mirrors that hung across from him.

There were no storied and traditional Hogwarts initiations in the Black family; Sirius' scars were the results of mundane things. He'd gotten one when he crashed a toy broom with Regulus on the back; he'd gotten another when he tossed a chess queen through the parlor window after Regulus had defeated him; he'd gotten the thick scar that stretched down his leg from falling out of a magnolia tree and into his mother's favorite rose garden.

His mother had Healed all of the minor bumps and bruises he sustained in the falls and accident, and patched up the parlor window; she had made sure he was perfectly healthy and whole, before she turned her wand on him in punishment. Sirius' scars were the consequences for (not of, and the distinction is so important) the mundane accidents of his childhood. And that certainly didn't fit with his carefully cultivated rebel-without-a-care (but with a cause) image, so he just didn't tell anyone.

Boys never asked, and if they did, telling them to shove off once was enough. Girls were more insistent; they wanted to know your history and your stories and they wanted to crawl around inside your head and talk about everything they found there. And that simply wasn't an option for Sirius.

Sirius Black had a whole swath of girls he kissed in corners and fondled under desks and fucked in empty classrooms, but very few of them ever came back. And he was fine with that. His skin was nice and thick.


	2. Chapter 2

_Curiosity Killed the Cat (The Wolf Ate Him) _

When Remus Lupin first came to Hogwarts, he kept his sleeves buttoned down over his wrists, and never removed his tie or his socks until after the lights had been extinguished and his dorm-mates had collapsed into their four-posters. It took most of First Year for James, Sirius and Peter to realize that Remus was deliberately avoiding showering at the same time they did, or deliberately letting them all leave for breakfast before taking off his pajamas, and he never once stripped down to his shorts to go on an impromptu swim with the Great Squid, as the rest of the Marauders were wont to do.

James was ravenously curious about the quiet boy's habits, but Sirius, who had secrets of his own, and Peter, who wasn't sure which side to take because his place in the Gryffindor foursome always seemed so precarious, persuaded James to let Remus alone, at least about this. His solemnity, and his neatness, and his deep respect for library books were, obviously, still fair game. And the other three boys teased Remus, but carefully, always watching to make sure the exasperated smile stayed stretched across his face, never taking their jokes at Remus' expense to a point where he could no longer pay.

Of course, James and Sirius tormented each other, taking it in turns to prank each other, never worried about any innocent Gryffindors or anyone else who might get caught in the crossfire of their raucous competition for who could get the most attention. They teased Peter somewhat more viciously than they ever teased Remus, mostly because Peter seemed less _fragile _than Remus, but a little bit because it was sometimes difficult to tease the always-dignified Remus, and wide-eyed, chubby Peter Pettigrew was the opposite of dignified.

Peter never teased anybody. Of course. He joined in the general laugh when James and Sirius shot cutting remarks at anyone who irritated them at that moment, and made sure to laugh at their jokes, even if they were directed at Peter himself. The jokes were often rather funny, and it's not like Peter had an extraordinary opinion of himself or anything, and also, he would do almost anything to remain in the Gryffindor group in which he was, every day, surprised to find himself.

But James noticed none of this, and wouldn't have cared even if he had managed to stop careening forward long enough. He could see the mystery of Remus Lupin, written in an impenetrable script on the angular jawline and bony fingers of the grey-eyed boy, and wanted desperately to solve it. James Potter had never been denied anything in his whole life.

James lasted another few weeks, but one morning, dashing down the stairs to the Common Room with Peter and Sirius, calling goodbye to a just-disappeared-into-the-bathroom Remus, James realized that he had forgotten his only inkstand on his desk in the dormitory. Smirking to himself, James detached himself from the chattering mass of people climbing through the Portrait Hole, and pushed his way back up the stairs to the dormitory. Quietly, he slipped through the mostly-closed door, and began to rummage at his desk, gently moving around his papers and riffling through his drawers. When the bathroom door swung open, James turned to greet Remus, holding the inkwell aloft as justification, suddenly terrified that he was intruding on something Remus had so desperately tried to keep private.

Steam poured out of the bathroom, weaving tendrils across Remus' bare shoulders, wreathing his outraged face, as he glared at his unexpected roommate.

"Sorry, mate, forgot my ink-" James stopped, unable to finish the sentence, completely transfixed by the crimson lines that streaked across Remus' chest and disappeared down his body under the towel wrapped around his waist; florid purple scars twisted down his shoulders and arms and climbed up his neck; they writhed out from underneath the towel and continued down his legs and ankles.

Remus' whole body was cross-hatched with scars; as if someone had stitched handfuls of red cord to every inch of his skin, with no discernible pattern or purpose. It was the worst thing James Potter had ever seen.

He opened his mouth to ask Remus what had happened, if that was even the appropriate question, when Remus snatched a book off the desk nearest the bathroom, and hurled it at James' head.

"Get out, Potter!" he roared, advancing on James, scooping books and quills and half-eaten candy bars and dirty clothes and flinging them at James. "Get out!"

A few months later, as James, Peter and Sirius sprawled on their beds, lazily discussing where Remus might have gone, again, it was Sirius, gazing at the full moon glowing through their window, who jokingly suggested that Remus might be a werewolf, but it was James, remembering his father's stories about werewolf transformations where the man tore his skin apart and it came back together as the wolf, who was the first to seriously consider Sirius' half-arsed suggestion


	3. Chapter 3

_The Wizarding Equivalent of a White Picket Fence_

As a child, whenever James Potter fell off his broom, or scraped his knees, or bruised his elbows, or sustained any of the injuries that a normal, well-loved Wizard child might suffer, he raced to his mother and flung himself into her lap, and always, immediately, she mended his hurts.

She _Episkied _the bones he broke trying to wrestle a stubborn Bludger back into it's case; she spread bruise salve on the giant bruise that wrapped around his shin after he skidded down the apple tree planted just outside his window; she healed the burn spots that dotted his hands after he tried to 'rescue' the fire-dwelling salamanders his cousin Anne had given him as a pet.

Later, at Hogwarts, Madam Pomfrey always fixed his Quidditch injuries, massaging healing pastes and potions into his sore muscles, and while she clucked her tongue and told him off for fighting, she mended his dueling injuries immediately, sending him back to class with an exasperated pat on the head.

When James was almost 6, he decided that his toy broom, which was only capable of rising three feet off the ground, was no longer sufficiently impressive. He loved watching the Chudley Cannons play Quidditch, and he'd attended games with his father where the action sometimes took place so high in the air, the players were nothing but darting specks of orange and black against the blue-grey sky. Real Quidditch players flew at altitudes higher than a measly 3 feet, and James, supremely confident in himself, had decided that he was a _real_ Quidditch player.

So, he waited until a bright morning when he heard his mother fire-call her sister, and then carried his toy broom out on to the balcony that stretched down the length of the second story of his house, more than a dozen feet off the ground.

James had asked Teela, their house-elf, for an orange cape, to be just like the Cannons, and she'd found him a golden-yellow table cloth that his mother hated. Deciding that would have to do for a cape, James tied the table cloth around his neck, and climbed up onto the balcony railing, broom over his tiny shoulder.

Balanced easily on the foot-wide railing, James surveyed his family's property, unsure of the actual boundaries, but cognizant that most of what he could see probably belonged to the Potter family. It gave him confidence, and a security and tranquility that he could not, at that moment in his life, describe, but realized later that this particular confidence was what set him apart from Sirius. Because while Sirius had all this too: house-elves, and rolling hills and orchards, and a big old Wizarding house, he lacked James' confidence in it, because Sirius despised his family and their inheritance, while simultaneously wanting nothing more than to be assured of himself with them.

But today, James was going flying. He flung his leg over the broom, bent his knees, and sprang off the balcony. For a few miraculous seconds, he flew.

Then, the hard ground whooshed up to meet him, and he crashed into the dirt, screaming in pain and fury and defeat. His left leg felt like it was on fire, and he pounded his fists and kicked his good foot and shrieked for his mother. He was not, for one second, afraid that she would not come to him, but she did not come for whole minutes, and it hurt so much, and she wasn't there to make it better, until suddenly she was, and everything went black as the agony faded from his body and his mind.

Up until that point, and for a long time thereafter, that was the worst day of James Potter's life. He had suffered very little; his parents and all the people who loved him had always made his hurts go away as quickly as they could.

That's why it was excruciating, every time Lily Evans turned him down. He wasn't used to pain, because someone always came and took it away. His skin was thin and vulnerable, and did a piss-poor job of protecting his heart. It felt like a knife wound, every time she told him 'No,' and sometimes for whole minutes after she walked away from him, he couldn't breathe, trapped in the agony of her rejection.

Sometimes, alone in bed, he would lift his shirt and trail his fingers over his chest and stomach, searching for the scars he thought he should have, the metaphorical wounds Lily Evans left on his vulnerable skin.

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A/N: Reviews are love


	4. Chapter 4

_Bigger than a Button _

Peter Pettigrew was not, unlike his friends, a child of extremes. His mother didn't whip out the bruise salve every time Peter fell out of a tree; she thought that slightly-painful knees might teach her children stay out of trees that were too big for them. But, neither did she _make_ the bruises, and she fiercely protected her son, as every mother should, from anyone who might hurt him.

Thus, Peter Pettigrew only had two important scars. This first stretched across the knuckle on the forefinger of his left hand, a scar where his finger used to be. The finger itself splashed into a gutter running red with the blood of 13 Muggles killed with a single curse, and once Peter had Transformed into the rat, he raced past his own finger as it floated sluggishly toward the drain he disappeared down.

The second scar was bigger, and it was metaphorical. James and Lily, and Sirius and Remus, and Dumbledore and everyone else in the Order didn't realize they'd been walking around in Peter's scar for months; it was the scar left behind when he severed himself from his friends, and from their life together, and their conceptions of their-selves, and their whole history.

Peter Pettigrew had one scar the size of a button, and another scar so big the entire future of the Wizarding world could fit inside of it.

And, it was funny, and horrifying, and utterly fucking despicable, and a whole host of adjectives that rat minds are not equipped to process, but it was much less scary and painful for Peter to cut off his whole life with his best friends, than it was for him to cut off his finger.


	5. Chapter 5

_Lily Potter (nee, Evans, never Snape) _

Lily Evans didn't have any scars. And that was what James Potter loved about her; she was a reflection of his own happiness and glee, for she was always kind and polite and smiling, and she understood exactly how to make people feel better about themselves.

Of course, Lily caught on to that lesson quite a few years before James did, but he did learn it eventually, and he was quick and eager to spread his irrepressible joy to as many people as he could possibly reach. Lily was gilded, Lily gleamed, and James and Lily were gilded and gleaming together, and people sometimes tried to touch the faint radiance they seemed to exude.

Lily was flawless, beautiful, perfect, and James told her this, over and over again, running his fingers and his lips and his tongue across her smooth skin, exuberantly proud to finally be allowed to be the one who made her glow.

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Lily Evans didn't have any scars, and that was what Severus Snape loved about her. She was the light in his midnight, the sparkle in his gloom, the brilliance in his grey. He never felt equal to her, because she always knew how to pull him out of his fury or his fear, and he never quite could figure out the words to comfort her when she was upset. She glowed, and he never would, and that was that.

He never told her she was flawless, or whispered her name into her skin, and in the end, that was probably a good thing, because all lights will eventually go out, but darkness will endure forever.

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A/N: Reviews are love (and inspiring)


	6. Chapter 6

_The Lighter Side of Black _

After Lily, (and sometimes, Severus thought that his life was divided into epochs, because he had Before Lily, Lily, and After Lily, but while both After and Before hadn't had Lily in them, After was indescribably worse, because now he knew what he had irrevocably lost) nobody asked Severus Snape about his scars. And he had a few.

One terrible alcohol-soaked night, just before Severus left for Hogwarts, his Muggle father had broken a few of Severus' fingers, in a slurred and furious attempt to keep his son from properly holding a wand. His mother Healed them, but sometimes, when learning a new and complicated wand movement, his once-broken fingers cramped and spasmed until he dropped his wand.

Whenever Severus cheeked either of his parents, his father, no matter how far across the room he was, or what he was holding at the time, backhanded Severus across the mouth with his right hand. It's not visible or anything, but Severus feels like he has a tiny scar at the edge of his jawline racing toward the corner of his mouth. On cold mornings, that side of his face aches. Severus is certain magic could fix it, but doesn't know what spell or potion to use, and will never explain to anyone who might know how it happened, and he wears his hair long to cover the (imaginary) scar.

He imagines that the back of his head was flatter than it should have been, because his father sometimes would force Severus up against a wall and hold him there, callused hand on the boy's throat, until Severus' magic forced his father to let go. This stopped once Severus came back from Hogwarts, the summer after 1st Year, with a wand he could now use, and a flinty expression in his eyes. His father never touched him again, and maybe this was the worst thing of all, that Severus ached so much for his father to notice him that he would have gladly taken being slammed up against a wall, if only his father would look at him.

Severus has a silvery, snakey, scaly scar coiled around the muscle of his left shoulder; it is Lucius Malfoy's personal scar-signature, and was the result of Malfoy's rage at Bellatrix Black for rejecting him being taken out on the greasy little half-blood 1st Year.

Before then, Severus had been a little bit nervous around the reserved 7th Year boy, but Malfoy's attack hurt less than some of the slaps or shoves or belts he'd gotten from his Muggle father, and Malfoy's enraged and contorted face had looked just absurd as Tobias Snape's often did, and the result of this day was threefold: Severus had a kind of cool-looking scar, he was no longer afraid of Lucius Malfoy, and he learned that reserve and dignity and a lightning-fast attack was far more effective and debilitating than passionate fury and taunting.

The Marauders had given Severus a few injuries-none of which left any actual scars. But they had also given him quite a few humiliations, which had left scars that were just as invisible as the scar his father had left on his jawline, but just as cripplingly pervasive.

And...after Severus had given her up, the Marauders had taken Lily.

But Lily didn't leave a scar, because he never healed from her. She was an open wound-a raw, aching, brutal wound in the middle of his chest, sucking all the air ass-backwards into his lungs, interrupting his breathing and his control and his sanity. She was ever-present; he constantly saw her hair and her nose and the color of her eyes on unsuspecting students and passers-by, and sometimes stared at them hungrily until they flinched in fear or turned away in disgust. Lily had never flinched, or turned away, until the very last day, and that was his fault (but it was also Potter and Black's fault, and Lupin's for not stopping them, and Dumbledore's for not expelling Sirius Black when he should have, and maybe, just a tiny bit Lily's fault for taking this one mistake as a pretext to end their friendship).

Lily was a wound, not something so mundane as a scar, and she would never get better and would never go away, and actually, Severus didn't want her to, because he only ever felt alive when he was thinking about the dead woman that he had loved.

Really, for the whole rest of his life, which essentially ended on a sunny day at the end of 5th year, he could feel nothing but that, nothing but the awful ache of her absence. So, when the Dark Lord branded the Dark Mark into his forearm, to Severus Snape, it really felt like just another scar.

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A/N: Hope you enjoyed it!


	7. Chapter 7

_Indelibility _

When Ron Weasley was 11, he defeated a giant, vicious, enchanted chess set, and saved the Sorcerer's Stone. He won the field by sacrificing himself. And when the granite queen raised her mace to knock him from his perch, Ron didn't beg, or plead, or try to change his mind. He took the hit, indelible to the end.

The bruises he sustained from tumbling across the tiles and remnants of marble pieces lasted for weeks, because he refused to let Madam Pomfrey heal them.

The whole thing made him an even better chess player, because from that time on, he challenged himself to construct games around the idea of never sacrificing a single piece, or experimented with openings and combinations that would allow him to leave specific pieces safely in the back row. Sometimes, he would try to play a game without touching his queen; sometimes he made the capture of his opponent's queen the whole point of the game. His chess games increased in sophistication and depth, and even Hermione conceded that Ron, with the emotional range of a teaspoon, could see every nuance of the whole board.

And, for the first time in a whole year, Ron Weasley finally felt like he deserved to be Harry Potter's friend.

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In their first year, Ron Weasley got bit by a fussy, teething dragon and missed a whole evening of adventure and terror, and detention. Third year, his leg got broken as Padfoot dragged him into the Whomping Willow, and he missed traveling back in time with Harry and Hermione to save Sirius and Buckbeak. Fifth year, he foolishly stuck his hands in a tank full of brains in the Department of Mysteries, and missed the rest of the battle, having lost control of his magic and his mind. In what would have been their 7th year, Ron wore a locket that was actually a Horocrux for too long, and stormed away from their campsite. He missed Hermione and Harry immediately, and he tried to come back, but they had gone on without him, as they had so many times before.

And they always welcomed him back, after all of his injuries and mishaps and foolish decisions; they welcomed him back and they told him what they had done in his absence and they said they wished he had been there, with them.

And always, he wondered: _what is it about me, that allows this shit to happen? Why am I always the one passed out in the Hospital Wing, or sprawled in a corner, or (and this was the worst) running away from the task at hand?_

Obviously, there's nothing pulling the strings of his own life; there's no-one deciding that Ron Weasley simply won't be there for his best friends when they need him, but it really does seem like it's always him.

The injuries that kept him out of commission-they're whatever. That's not what left the scars.

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In 6th year, when Ron was dating Lavender Brown (and if by _dating, _he meant snogging her and letting her finger-comb his hair and not bothering to hide the fact that no matter how close Lavender held him, his eyes always, helplessly, followed Hermione) he got attacked by a flock of yellow-feathered birds.

They left two deep scars in the backs of his hands, and the scars never went away. Now that he's older, the woman who sent the flock of birds after him will sometimes, when they are tangled up together in bed, or standing on Platform 9 and 3/4 waving goodbye to their children, or simply drying dishes, raise his scarred hand to her mouth, and kiss the punctures her birds left in his skin. But Hermione has never apologized, and Ron never wants her to.

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A/N: Reviews are love!


	8. Chapter 8

_The Lesser End of More _

For Draco Malfoy, it was much less about the scars that he did have, and much more about the scars that he doesn't have.

He has a few faint lines on his shoulders and forearms-jagged-edged white slashes barely visible against his pale skin. They are remnants of Stinging Hexes fired at him by his furiously disappointed father after poorly-played Quidditch games or the arrival of Draco's exam results. His father would punish him by laying his wand at the base of Draco's neck or down the length of his forearms, and murmuring a curse that blazed coldly against his skin, and Draco was expected to hold perfectly still, and to never cry, and to apologize afterwards for yet again failing to meet his father's expectations.

His father does this rarely, because Draco is very careful around his father, but also because Lucius Malfoy is a busy man, and often reads papers and contracts and signs documents and firecalls his colleagues whilst he is punishing his son, never letting Draco forget that until Draco is a better Malfoy, a better Slytherin, _a better son, _his place on his father's list of priorities is both precarious, and not particularly high.

These scars can only be seen in a very bright light, and they can only be felt by running one's finger tips over Draco's collarbones and elbows, and since he lives in a dungeon and wears a lot of black, and since the only girls that touch his skin are Pureblood themselves, and thus understand, these scars aren't really a very big deal.

Hippogriff claws left heavy ridges on his shoulder and ribs, there's a weird stiffness in his spine that post-dates the amazing bouncing ferret incident from 4th year, and Harry Potter, using a spell Draco knows was created by Severus Snape, slashed Draco's chest to bloody ribbons in a girls' toilet during 6th year. These scars are somewhat more noticeable, and while it's still humiliating, even years after the fact, to remember the pain and degradation that was his short-lived stint as a ferret, Draco can talk about these scars without feeling like he wants to crawl out of his skin and slither away.

In fact, he spent much of 3rd year being cooed at by Slytherin girls as he strutted around with his arm in a silver-edged sling; even though his arm and chest had healed after 3 days, he kept the sling for far longer. Because Madam Pomfrey, when she was treating his hippogriff injuries, obviously noticed the Stinging Hex scars given to Draco by his father, because she traced her fingers across his skin, and ran a diagnostic test over the thick cluster in the hollow of his throat, and then lowered her wand, and looked into Draco's eyes.

It was obvious that she was wondering if she should ask him what had caused the scars, but then she shook her head and snapped her mouth shut, and smiled grimly at him, and went off in a low-voiced rant about the absurdity of introducing Hippogriffs to 3rd years as she patched up his wounds.

Draco never knew if Madam Pomfrey had simply decided that peering into the manner of Lucius Malfoy's discipline of his son and heir would end badly, for both herself and Draco, or if she had looked at the Slytherin crest on his sweater, and the smirk he had forced onto his face so she wouldn't see the agony it hid, and decided that he simply wasn't worth it, because he was already almost a Death Eater, and (probably) nothing could divert him from that dark end. So, he kept the sling, because it made girls smile sympathetically at him and pet his head, and that was much better than Madam Pomfrey's brisk, detached bedside manner.

Obviously, he never told his father that he'd been turned into a ferret, and he absolutely never told his father that it had been Harry Potter who had nearly killed him in a girls' toilet in 6th year, but at least the Hippogriff scars look kind of cool.

But these scars are mostly products of the fact that he goes to a Wizarding school, where classes about magical creatures are convened and the teachers and students can use magic to express their dislike of you, because somebody else will always turn up to put everything right again.

Perhaps the scars from the Stinging Hexes aren't quite as normal and expected as magical accidents at Hogwarts might be, but there is little that Draco can do about his father, and his father's expectations for his son.

These scars don't define him, because they are simply a three-dimensional reflection of some of the things that have happened to him over the course of his life.

But Draco doesn't have a lightning scar cutting a jagged path down the center of his forehead, and this is his tragedy, because his parents didn't defy the Dark Lord but joined him instead, and demanded that Draco do the same.

Unlike Harry Potter, Draco didn't have a reminder cut into the middle of his face that his parents loved him enough to leave him; unlike Harry Potter, Draco didn't spend his whole life knowing for certain that his dignified, careful mother would die for him, if she needed to.

Nobody ever gave Draco a choice: his school friends were the sons and daughters of his parents' friends; his future occupation was pre-destined and decided, and he was compelled to hate Harry Potter, because while Harry had _nothing_ it still always seemed as if he had more than Draco, and Draco was always frantic to figure out why he felt so fucking inadequate around the untidy, scrawny Harry Potter.

When he was a little boy, hearing stories from his father about the Little Shit Who Lived with nothing but a 2-inch scar, Draco stole his mother's wand, and tried to give himself a lightning scar of his own. It didn't work. And that idea resulted in the cluster of Stinging Hex scars that branch whitely in the hollow of his throat.

It wasn't until years later that Draco realized that while the lightening scar was a pretty fucking impressive symbol it wasn't the sum total of Harry Potter, because Harry also had humility and just enough confidence to not be obnoxious and a decently quick mind and a _nobility _that somehow wasn't conferred by a mansion in Wiltshire and generations of Pureblood. And even if Draco had a scar like Harry Potter, he would still have none of those other things.

Draco doesn't have a lightning scar in the center of his forehead, but he also doesn't have a Dark Mark burned into his left forearm, and that's important, too.


	9. Chapter 9

_[Im]plausible Im[perfection]_

Ginny Weasley doesn't have quite as many scars as might be expected of a Quidditch-playing war hero.

She has a few thin white lines that arch across her arms and chest and neck; they are residue (remnants? She's never sure of the right noun, and they're nearly invisible anyway, so it doesn't _really_ matter) of the _Cruciatus _curses she suffered, the year she and Neville and Luna led Dumbledore's Army. That was a weird year-even absent the return of Voldemort and Hogwarts as a bastion of Death Eaters and a missing Harry and Ron and Hermione-it was a weird fucking year. Neville Longbottom somehow managed to scoop up his destiny as it cantered by him, and became this incredibly brave, bracing, fiercely gentle _man _who almost singlehandedly kept the DA alive and fighting. And Luna was her normal ethereal self, but under all that airy hair and airier conversation she suddenly proved to be so _smart _and cunning and a lightning-fast dueler.

It had been enormously surprising to Ginny, to realize exactly how much tenacity and raw courage and righteousness Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom actually had. It had almost been expected of Ginny to take the lead with Dumbledore's Army, as Harry Potter's girlfriend and Ron and Fred and George's sister and the daughter to two Blood-Traitors and Order of the Phoenix members; it was completely expected that she would have some sort of leadership role thrust upon her. And it was almost easy to be brave, Ginny realized that year, when everybody already expects it of you. But nobody expected Luna or Neville to be brave, but they were. And so, she didn't have nearly as many Cruciatus scars as might be expected of Ginny Weasley, leader of Dumbledore's Army, because Luna and Neville took them for her.

Ginny has two tiny pink-edged scars from a bludger that scraped the shit out of her back as she dove for a loose Quaffle in a match against Ravenclaw; she has a callus on the tip of her right index finger from years of clutching a quill, and quite a few less childhood-injury scars than one might imagine, growing up in a house with six brothers, two of whom managed to blow themselves up with a frequency that became alarmingly mundane.

But, Ginny was the first Weasely girl in seven generations, and her brothers were reminded daily, by their red-faced mother, to play gently with her. And any way, Charlie and Bill were too old to play with her, and Percy might read to her if she asked nicely and he hadn't been pranked recently by Fred and George, and the twins were often lost in their own twin world together, and since Ron desperately wanted to be a part of that, he mostly refused to play with his little sister, for fear that the twins would ridicule him.

So Ginny was left to her own devices, under the watchful eye of a mother who was so incredibly glad to finally have a daughter after six frenetic boys that Ginny consequently played a lot of dolls and read a lot of books and didn't climb nearly as many trees as she might have wished. She mostly stayed on the ground. So, even with Fred and George for brothers, and Charlie for a Quidditch coach, Ginny Weasley has nearly-flawless skin. She shines.

Harry tells her this, as he traces his fingertips across her neck and her collarbones, his eyes slightly crossed without his glasses as he stares down at her, seemingly entranced by the glow of her skin. She's so beautiful that she shines, he whispers against her hair, and always, his voice trembles slightly, as if he is still unsure how this girl ended up in his arms.

* * *

He's never left any scars, and if he had, she would wear them proudly (which is complicated-would the pride be over who had given them to her, or that she had survived them?) but Harry's hit her a few times. It's almost always been in the midst of a violent nightmare, as he thrashes around in their bed, choking and tangled in the sheets. She's yanked the covers off of him, and mostly he relaxes back into sleep, and other times he freaks out even more, but sometimes (rarely) he launches his sleeping self at her, fingers reaching for her face and throat, to claw away the nightmare he is fighting.

It's almost always in the midst of a nightmare, and any marks he leaves Heals the next morning, apologizing profusely, and not quite meeting her eye, yet again embarrassed that the savior of the wizarding world is still afraid of the shadows of his past. She tells Ron sometimes, about Harry's dreams, and Ron nods grimly, because he lived with Harry for 7 years and he's woken his best friend up from other nightmares, and also, he and Hermione were with Harry for a lot of this shit, and they have nightmares of their own.

It's almost always in the middle of a nightmare, except for the _ever so rare _occasions when it's not, when it's simply been a horrendous day for the Aurors and it's maybe too close to the anniversary of a death that Harry thinks he should have been able to prevent.

His uncle did it to him, Harry tells her, after the first time it's not a nightmare, the first time it's nothing but stress and alcohol and baby James who won't just fucking shut up already. His uncle was quick to slap the back of his hand across Harry's mouth or temple, was grimly pleased to belt the shit out of Harry if something _freaky _happened. His uncle did it to him, and he's so sorry, every time, so Ginny heals the bruises herself and doesn't tell Ron; she'd known about the cupboard under the stars, and the bars on his window when her brothers rescued him before her 1st Year so this doesn't really surprise her, but at the same time, it unequivocally does.

His uncle did it to him, and Harry obviously had hated it, and dreaded it, and despises his uncle for it, so why the fuck does he do it to her? Harry Potter is _all about _nobility and self sacrifice and keeping others out of harm's way, but Ginny understands (even if she doesn't admit) that she is merely another person in a long line of people who gave Harry things so that he could be this way-Lily and James, and Sirius, and Dumbledore and Dobby and Remus and Tonks and Fred and Colin Creevey and now Ginny.

She gives him her forgiveness, every time, without even letting him ask for it. All those other people, they _died _for him, so she just forgives him and that's a good trade-off (except for the painful seconds when it isn't), because he's _Harry Potter. _His uncle did it to him, and maybe this is how he thinks about love, and Ginny had all those brothers who spent all those years protecting her so that (maybe) she could be ready for Harry, who had lots of protectors, even though most of them ended up dying rather than sticking around and generally helping him, and she refuses to be the next person to leave him.

He never actually leaves any scars, because he's never really trying to hurt her, since it's always almost a nightmare-driven accident. And magic can heal any bruises or cuts so that when Harry looks at her he only sees her shining skin, perfect and pure and wholly unmarked (even if it's not perfectly true, it's what he needs to see, so Ginny gives him that, too).


	10. Chapter 10

_Her Favorite Words are 'Fraught' and 'Ameliorate' _

Hermione Granger was rather more of an _indoor _girl, growing up as the only child of two (rather) over-protective dentists. She didn't climb a lot of scratchy trees, or tumble off of any jungle gyms, or skin her knees playing in any streams or fields, because mostly she was curled up in the deep window seat in her bedroom, reading a book.

So, she doesn't really have any childhood injury scars, because her childhood happened mostly indoors, (and her paper cuts always healed almost instantaneously anyway) but also, (unsurprisingly) she was a very careful child, aware, from a precociously early age that the stove was _hot, _that it _hurt _to slam fingers in doorjambs, that if you drop a glass you must stand very still, until Mummy comes and swoops you up away from the pointy, slicing shards.

So, she doesn't really have a lot of scars, but that doesn't mean that her childhood wasn't enormously damaging or hurtful- in fact, it was probably more horrid than most, more horrid than anyone would probably imagine. Because Hermione loves books, and writing, and words and reading, but sometimes books are not incredible stories full of adventure and a bit of suspense and a richly satisfying ending- instead, sometimes, they are horrible betrayals, where an author decides to end the story in the exact opposite way of what would be satisfying.

Because, tiny Hermione, curled up in her window seat, was seriously, irrevocably devastated, when Leslie died at the end of _Bridge to Terebithia;_ actually heartbroken, when Peter Pan never really came back for his Wendy-lady; legitimately horrified when Sara Crewe's father didn't stride manfully out of the Little's house to rescue his sobbing daughter (because he was dead, so he wasn't striding anywhere, or rescuing anyone).

These books in particular, but dozens of others in general, seriously, actually, broke her little-girl heart; they damaged her in a way that the upper-middle class daughter of two loving parents should never be damaged.

So, Hermione Granger, deeply loved child of two wonderful, deeply caring parents, understood from a _very _young age that the world (even the world inside her parents' home, even the world in her window seat) was unspeakably bleak. She understood that things in books [_in life_] don't always end the way you hope they might. That sometimes, life is sad, and horrible for no good reason, and _it doesn't ever get any better. _

(But, getting her Hogwarts letter when she turned eleven more or less healed these metaphorical wounds on her little-girl soul, because magic (legitimate magic, like in the books she loved but had almost stopped believing in) was suddenly, incredibly, inexplicably, life-alteringly, miraculously _real)_.

* * *

For Hermione, Hogwarts was: so many incredible, fascinating books!; missing her parents; so many incredible, fascinating teachers! (and a few terrible ones); (assuaging the fear that the letter and the wand and Diagon Alley were all actually an elaborate practical joke); lots of kids who weren't tremendously impressed at how much she knew and how much she talked; and, for the first time in her life, _friends _(that weren't imaginary or only-literary).

She'd never really expected to have such friends as Harry and Ron, but realized (a long time before they ever did, because boys are rather idiots, _obviously_) that she, Ron and Harry became so close because they were [are] all actually, desperately, lonely.

Hermione has books and that's lovely, but as much as she wishes the characters were real and could play with her, they aren't, and that's never going to change. And Ron has all those brothers (and a sister!) but that doesn't mean that they always had time for him, or that he ever felt special, or unique in his family full of loud, charismatic Weasleys. And, you only just had to look at Harry for an instant to see the loneliness radiating from his skin, or dripping off the ends of his hair (_just like James'_ _hair!) _or glinting in the corners of his green eyes (_just like his mother's). _So, it's actually not all that surprising that they all ended up as friends; they were all each perfect [lonely] for each other.

* * *

_Ugh. Lavender Brown: _Remember when Ron dated her? (if you can even call it _dating, _and Hermione doesn't. In fact, she doesn't mention 6th year much at all whenever Hogwarts graduates get together and reminisce about their school days.) But still, that whole pig-tailed, shrill-voiced _experience _wasn't really completely heartbreaking for Hermione anyway, because even as she swept past the pair of them, nose in the air, she knew Ron's eyes always followed her as she walked away from him.

So that really wasn't the worst, most hurtful thing that ever happened to her. Instead, it was this: she and Harry, half-starved, huddling in a tent in some patch of forest somewhere, listening as Ron marched out of their tent and off into the woods, leaving them (_leaving her, after he finally realized how he felt about her) _and not looking back.

That was the worst betrayal, worse than 3rd year when both boys stopped talking to her, worse than wiping herself out of her parents' memories, worse than anything that had ever happened to anyone she ever loved (in real life, or in a book). She still has nightmares about it sometimes; terrible, heart-pounding dreams where she hunts frantically for Ron in a dark forest, shrieking his name, listening fiercely as he runs ahead of [away from], and is lost to her. After he left, she was bereft. And Hermione, who makes it a point to remember everything that she possibly can, will never, ever forget how deeply it hurt to watch Ron march away from her.

And of course, she made allowances for Ron, and forgave him when he came back to them, because Ron, for all his gangly height, was still a boy, and Harry had never really been a child, but also wasn't really an adult either (Harry was a _hero, _and heroes are genres completely unto themselves), so Hermione grew up for all of them, and forgave Ron for this ultimate betrayal of their friendship.

She forgave Ron because she loved him, because she _loves_ him, and because if she didn't forgive him the happy future she saw for herself would never come to be, because she would never find anyone to compare to Ron Weasley.

She knows that he will never walk out on her again, but she still has nightmares about it, and she loves him with all her heart, but her love for him is tempered with the knowledge that he walked out on her, once. And he'll never do it again, but he did do it once, and while this betrayal has been forgiven it cannot be forgotten, and so Hermione never mentions it to Ron, but she still races after his uncatchable back in her dreams.

But when Ron did come back to them, Hermione had to forgive him, because he makes Harry laugh in a way that studious Hermione never could; Ron brings levity and humor and goofiness to even the most serious situation, and while Harry certainly needed Hermione's spells and books and knowledge, he also needed all that Ron could give him, too. So, she let him back in.

* * *

Because, Hermione had decided years ago, when she first heard of Voldemort and all the havoc he had wrought, that Harry would be the one to win it for them. So, she is the way she is (the excruciatingly-prepared know-it-all way that she is) mostly because she loves learning, but also because Harry needs her to be this way. And do you have any idea how tiring, taxing, [soul-draining] it is to be the one who always has the answer?

(At least, though, she only has to have the answer for Harry Potter. She doesn't actually have to implement it; she doesn't actually have to be him.)

And so, always having the answer is hard, and difficult, and tiresome, but she's never required to do anything about it, because Harry was always there to do it for her, (and anyway, she was always very careful) so it's not really surprising that Hermione doesn't really have any scars (not any scars like Harry's, anyway). And she's a tiny bit furious that she was half-sidekick, half-wise old lady in the story of her own life, but the truest hero Hermione knows is Harry Potter, and she knows that his biggest scar is less the jagged lightning bolt in the center of his forehead, and more the blankness behind his eyes and the guilt that coils in the bit of his stomach and the fear that slithered coldly in his veins for most of his Hogwarts career.

So, Hermione Granger is happy with her role in the story of her life, and is happy that the ending didn't break too many hearts.


	11. Chapter 11

_A Pared Pair_

Before he was 20, George Weasley had singed off his eyebrows an uncountable number of times (Exploding Snap, jinxes, blown-up, backfiring experiments, and once or twice, just because), fallen off of 2 different broomsticks (once during his first Quidditch match ever, and once on a dark night just before Harry Potter's 17th birthday) and taken a Bludger to the back of the head that he swears still affects him (his vision blurs randomly and without warning, and streaky white lights flash in the corners of his eyes).

So, just a normal range of injuries, obviously, and exactly what one might expect from a boy who was daring and rambunctiousness personified (and squared, but that is rather advanced math, and George just doesn't really feel up to it most days).

* * *

When George Weasley was 20, he took a _Sectrumsempra_ to the face that he knows was meant for his father, and lost an ear.

Then, for the next terrifying [exhilarating] year, he was Rapier (and sometimes Rodent), and survived daily Death Eater attacks, as Rapier and Rodent brought news and hope to the beleaguered Wizarding World. He has a few twisted, branching white lines that criss-cross his body, scars from curses Death Eaters fired at his Apparating back.

And he, unlike so many unfortunate others, came through the final battle completely and miraculously [horrifically and unfairly] unscathed. Except...

* * *

Except:

GW, student of entropy, disciple of disaster and boy-king of chaos certainly doesn't ever care if he can only find mismatched socks or gloves. Sometimes, you know, it's better to lose one half of a pair-for example, it's easier to chat up girls or be the center of everybody's attention if you're wearing one purple and orange glove, and one zebra-striped glove.

Only twice has he ever minded losing half of a pair: once, when he lost his ear, and once, when he lost his twin.

Without Fred, there is nothing. Jokes aren't funny without Fred to laugh at them, girls aren't pretty without Fred to point them out to, ideas and plans aren't brilliant and dangerous and doable anyway without Fred to gladly agree to them.

People grimace at George sympathetically, when they remember that there used to be another Weasley twin; some clutch their stomachs, imagining the deep, visceral ache that is missing Fred. But then they drop their hands and the imagined ache dissipates and they walk away. George can't walk away (and isn't ever sure that he wants to, because is it worse to live with the hot, sharp memory of his brother who isn't there and never will be again, or to live without it?)

George can't look at Angelina Johnson because he only sees Fred's smile when he thought of her, Fred's plans for their life together and the ridiculous names Fred planned on giving to their imaginary children.

He can't stay at the Burrow, because he only sees Fred scampering up the stairs or plotting to get Percy in trouble or tossing gnomes over garden walls, cheering when they bounced.

He can't visit Hogwarts, because he only sees Fred falling backwards, laughing uproariously for the last time in his life.

He can't fly, because instead of watching where he is going he only sees his brother flying behind him, and only hears Fred's voice cheering him on. So, he crashes his broomstick, and sometimes he could have saved himself (he and Fred were, after Harry, the best fliers on the Gryffindor Quidditch team) but he doesn't, because he doesn't see danger or feel pain without Fred.

Because being without Fred is pain, and there is nothing worse. Being without Fred is pain, and there is nothing else.

* * *

People tell George that it will get better, that the sadness and the despair and the savage, crushing pain will fade, as the years pass.

Almost three years after Fred's death, Angelina marries Allistair Davies, and whispers to George as he kisses her cheek that she will name her first son after his brother. But she smiles as she walks down the aisle toward Davies, and George has to leave the church before they say their vows to each other. He can't listen to the girl his brother loved promise himself to another man.

It takes almost a decade before Molly Weasley stops accidentally or absentmindedly calling George by his twin's name; it takes more than nine years for Fred's mother to finally realize that Fred is not coming back.

So, now, when she knits him sweaters she doesn't put a 'G' on the front, because there is no longer anyone to confuse him with, and when she tells him a story that starts with "your brother" it doesn't automatically mean Fred. It could be any of George's brothers, except one.

Except for George, Molly is the last person to accept that Fred Weasley died on that day in May, with his wand in his hand and a smile on his face. But she does finally accept it, and she heals herself as best as mother who has lost a child can, and moves forward with the rest of her life.

But George cannot lift himself out of the hole that Fred's death has made in his life. He cannot move on or past it or forward. He is lessened without his twin, and he wakes up everyday looking for his brother, only to realize again that Fred is dead and that death, even for Wizards, is final. Every night, he dreams that his brother is alive, and every morning, he forgets, as he rises out of sleep, that this is just a dream. And, every morning, when he opens his eyes, and the awareness of being without Fred hits him, it feels, every day, like he has lost Fred all over again. For George, Fred dies every morning, over and over again.

George Weasley used to have a left ear. Now he has a hole. Also, he used to have a twin. Now, he just has a hole.


	12. Chapter 12

_red__Black__blood_

Andromeda Black was 13 years old when she realized that boys liked her sister Bellatrix because Bellatrix is like obsidian: she's dark and passionate and carelessly cruel. Once, walking out to Herbology, Andromeda had overheard Patrick Maloney telling George Montague that "a bloke could get lost in Bella's black hair, or in that mad smile." Then he'd grinned, and nudged George, and murmured, "and I wouldn't mind being lost one bit, long as I had those legs wrapped around me." Andromeda had made a soft noise in the back of her throat, a small gasp of laughter at the thought of Bella _ever_deigning to talk to a skinny Hufflepuff like Patrick Maloney, and both boys had spun around to face her, clearly unaware of her presence behind them. They had flinched, seeing her, and Andromeda had smiled loftily, doing her haughty _noblesse __oblige _thing with her eyebrows, letting them know that _yes_, she had heard everything.

She had floated past them, letting them smell the lavender of her perfume and sense the calmness of her attitude, leaving them stuck behind her, frozen in their fear of her sister. Obviously, she never did tell Bella what they said, mostly because if Andromeda repeated to Bella _all _the gossip that was whispered about her, Bella would spend most of her waking hours plotting revenge on a vast majority of the school. But, she also didn't tell Bella what they said because why bother? They were silly boys who were just talking, and they were doing it wistfully and mostly respectfully, so what would the point of telling Bella be, exactly? She could see the harm that would come from it, but that wasn't the important question. The important question was: what _good _would come from it, exactly?

Her surname was Black and she was indubitably a Slytherin, but that didn't make Andromeda unkind. _Obviously, __names __and __School __Houses __don__'__t __define __people_, Andromeda told herself, (except, that they really did, because Bella was _nothing _if she wasn't a Slytherin, and Andromeda was only a Slytherin because she'd _asked. __Your __loyalty __would __make __you __an __excellent __Hufflepuff_, the Hat had told her, and Andromeda had screamed silently at the Hat: _No, __please! __Don__'__t __make __me __a __Hufflepuff, __for __Merlin__'__s __sake! __Please, __please, __just __let __me __be __a __Slytherin.)_

And even though she was a Slytherin, Andromeda Black had decided that she didn't need to be the kind of furiously whirling dervish that made people both like and fear her older sister. She could proudly wear Black as her surname but her heart, and her intentions, didn't necessarily have to match. _You __catch __more __flies __with __honey, __than __with __vinegar, _her mother had often told them, and Bella would always laugh and say that she didn't want to catch any flies, and anyway if she did she wouldn't use vinegar _or_honey-that's what poison was for. Andromeda certainly didn't want to catch any flies either, because that was disgusting and also pointless, but the metaphor stuck, nevertheless. And, it wasn't until Andromeda was much older that she understood that the thrilling fear that Bellatrix inspired in people? That was absolutely a reason why boys (men, now) liked Bella, too.

Andromeda was 17 when she finally understood that boys _loved _her, because she was not the deep obsidian of her older sister, (or the fragile crystal of her younger sister) but a lighter (and darker) version of each. That boys loved her because she was beautiful, but she was approachable about it, and that she understood that boys liked their honey with just a bite of vinegar mixed in. Because, Andromeda Black was 17 when she first met (first _really _met, anyway) Ted Tonks, when they were partnered up for the N.E.W.T level Ancient Runes project.

At first, and only in her private thoughts, she called him 'the Mudblood,' but as she grew to understand his sharp sense of humor, and his even sharper mind, the epithet disappeared even from her private consciousness. He was the first Muggle-born she'd really known, and it was _wonderful_to meet someone who wanted to understand _her,_and didn't imagine that she was represented well enough by the sum total of her family's history. He called her all sorts of diminutive versions of her given name, but he never called her 'Black,' as if he never wanted to remind her of who she truly was. _My __surname __isn__'__t __the __sum __of __me_, she often insisted to him. _And, __you __shouldn__'__t __be __afraid __of __using __it. __It__'__s __nothing __but __a __name, __nothing __but __a __word._

But, that was a lie, because her surname _was_ her family, _was_ her history and her whole life and her future. Her surname dictated who she would marry (a Selwyn, or perhaps a Nott or a Bulstrode), and it announced what her life would be like (beautiful, tranquil wife to a wealthy Death Eater, teaching her own children that _you __catch __more __flies __with __honey __than __with __vinegar_).

Her surname was a one-syllable summation of her whole self, until the day that Ted, blushing and stammering, asked her if she might give up that name, and take his instead.

And that was exactly what happened; by marrying a Mudblood named Tonks, Andromeda Black gave up her old family. She was the first of the Blacks to do it; the first named burned away on the gold-embroidered tapestry. She gave up her old family and she made a new one, with her Mudblood husband and her Metamorphagus daughter who sometimes suddenly wore Bella or Narcissa's faces. She did it because she could see the harm that would result, if she stayed a Black, but she could not make out the good. She did it because she could feel and smell and imagine the good that would come of becoming a Tonks, and although the harm that would result was neither ancillary nor inconsequential, it was less significant than the good. Because, ever since she was a little girl, even in a world of Black, Andromeda _always_ looked for the good.

And she learned that you can drain all of the blood from your veins and keep on living, because blood, Black blood at least, isn't what keeps you alive. Ted's blood was red just like hers, red just like their daughter's, red just like their grandson's half-werewolf blood. Blood is blood is blood, Andromeda realized, and the color of it doesn't matter at all, as long as it keeps flowing.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks so much for reading (after such a long hiatus)! Hope you enjoyed it! I'd love to hear what you think!**


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